DreadBall is now into its sixth season, rounding out the teams to 24 – in this article we’ll take a look at how the DreadBall Season Six Teams came to be.

Designer Notes Part 1

Season Six offers all of the bizarre teams in one place, as well as four new giants and a cast of characterful new MVPs – even an alternate referee!

This latest crop of DreadBall teams are perhaps the most interesting yet.

Take the Crystallans and Ada-Lorena for example.

Just like every team since Season Four way back in January, both of these teams come pre-assembled, ready right out of the box to take to the neodurium pitches of the far future. They also come with prone figures, so you don’t have to lie your figures on the board when they get knocked over.

Where these figures differ however, are that both teams come in translucent blue plastic!

The Ada-lorena

We wanted these figures to have the cool factor. Interestingly the Ada-lorena originally started under the moniker of ‘Phasers.’ Almost like a team of holograms, they would phase in and out of reality. This ability would make them one of the most powerful teams in the game, as suddenly obstacles and even opposing team members are of little significance to the way the Ada-lorena move around the tabletop. We think Jake did a great job making this ability fun and balanced, and James M. Hewitt came up with suitably cool background to make them that little bit special.

Here’s a snippet:

The Glambek Ghosts are the best known of the few Ada-Lorana teams currently playing in the big leagues. The Ada-Lorana are very particular about their corporate sponsors, and routinely reject the normal technology and entertainment conglomerates that approach them. Glambek & Glambek are one of the very few legal companies to sponsor major DreadBall teams. This legal link is important to the Ada-Lorana as they hold themselves as arbiters of justice on many worlds outside the Corporation’s
Co-Prosperity Sphere.

It is rumoured that the Ada-Lorana who make up the Glambek Ghosts and other teams are, in some way, judging the Corporation itself as they explore its worlds from within. The Ada-Lorana say only that they are always interested in the cultures of other species, and are honoured to be allowed to participate in such important sporting rituals.

The Crystallans

The Crystallans too started off as a simple concept – ‘Rock’ monsters, made of crystal. Not terribly sci-fi, but a cool idea, and one we worked up into the idea of a population of aliens that fused with their crystalline planet after a devastating Forge Father attack – crystal which works like the opposite of Kryptonite in the game. Rather than getting weaker, when Crystallans are in close proximity to each other, they become stronger. This makes for a very tactical team on the tabletop, and the translucent blue plastic makes for some very interesting effects when you paint the rock – it creates some very cool shadows ‘in’ the model.

The first piece of concept art nailed their look pretty much straight away, and even though we opted not to give them a striker for game play reasons, all three designs really hit the spot with us and they went straight into sculpting.

Painting

The Ada-lorena is the quickest DreadBall team studio painter Dave has ever painted. Dave said it actually took him longer to prepare the models for painting than it did to actually paint them!

A simple wash into the recesses and a light highlight added definition for the camera, before he picked out details by hand to draw your eye to interesting parts of the miniature, like the central eye and icon on the chest.

For the Crystallans, Dave painted the crystal areas the same way as the Ada-lorena, before undercoating and painting the rock and metal by hand. He gave the crystal a highlight on the extreme edges to really make it sparkle.

After that, it was down to photographer Ben to snap the models for the book, adding some moody lighting to really play to the strength of the coloured plastic.

Coming Soon: Tomorrow we’ll take a look at the Koris and the Tsudochan, two of the most bizarre teams we’ve ever done, as well as the Season Six teams our Kickstarter backers have painted. Stay tuned!

The new Season Six Book, Teams and MVPs are now available to pre-order from your friendly local gaming store and the Mantic Website.

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